America’s 43rd president George W. Bush, “underwent surgery Tuesday morning to address an arterial blockage in his heart that was discovered at his annual physical on Monday,” The Washington Postreports. Into Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital went Bush, and into Bush’s heart went a stent, a little tube-y thing designed to prevent the artery from further constriction. Or, translated out of highly specialized medical jargon: a little tube-y thing designed to keep other tube-y things from shrinking. The former president is “in high spirits, eager to return home tomorrow and resume his normal schedule on Thursday,” according to a statement from his office.

Bush’s former boss Dick Cheney, whose “Health Problems” Wikipedia section is longer than that of an entire entry for individual members of the band One Direction, once had a stent implemented. It was in 1947, and Cheney was six years old. A diet of whiskey, cigarettes, and fatty cuts of steak had led to the young Cheney’s first heart attack the year prior. Cheney initially attempted to stave off surgery by calmly but forcefully telling his heart that it better “get its ass in line” or Cheney will not hesitate to “shoot it in the fucking face.” Medically speaking, this (very) alternative treatment was not considered a success. Cheney begrudgingly accepted the stent but, citing a desire to “just power through it,” refused anesthesia.

Hundreds of heart attacks and decades later, Dick Cheney’s cardiovascular system is currently more stent than organic material. Thousands of interconnected stents transport a blood-like mixture to a black box—the very device used to determine the nature of error following a plane crash—lodged in Cheney’s chest cavity that functions as a heart.

In fact, one more surgery indicated on his punchcard and Cheney is eligible for a free removal of any nonessential organ he wants. He’s thinking one of his two kidneys—the pair of them are getting pretty chummy down there and life is about hard work, dammit.